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I’m, having difficulty understanding how the new contact system is supposed to work, and what I have failed to set up in order for it to work correctly. This is where I am:

1. A user can now contact me by clicking on the Contact icon in the top menu bar – but when I try to use I get a 500 error
2. If I want to contact a user I tried by identifying him in Administration – Users – Manage users and clicking on his Email address. I have a problem here – a new page appears with my site header and top menu icons, and a tab with the title ‘Contact us’ – but nothing else.
3. Registered users of the site used to contact each other by using the Widgets-Message route which of course no longer exists. How can they do it now? I’m guessing that they should do it via the Contact icon, but no drop-down list of potential addressees appears – only my name.

The site seems to be functioning correctly in other respects since the upgrade – although I haven’t tested it exhaustively yet – and I’ve been through the usual steps like Dashboard-Home and clearing cache. I have the same experience in both Chrome and Edge. I assume I have omitted to do something – would appreciate guidance.

Ron in France Website: https://clan-davies.kiwitrees.net/ kiwitrees 3.3.11; PHP 8.0.14

P.S. The icon for ‘Contact’ in the top menu bar appears to be the same as the ‘Home’ icon, which I imagine is not intentional, and it seems to be positioned too far left (in ‘webtrees’ theme). Bug or related to the above?

Ron in France Website: https://clan-davies.kiwitrees.net/ kiwitrees 3.3.11; PHP 8.0.14

Tried option 2 as Ron mentioned above an than this error.

Catchable fatal error: Object of class stdClass could not be converted to string in /home/stambo1q/public_html/kiwitrees/library/WT/DBStatement.php on line 87

Wim

stamboommeijberg.nl

 

 

Ron

I number of distinct issues there.

1. A user can now contact me by clicking on the Contact icon in the top menu bar – but when I try to use I get a 500 error

I logged into your site and confirmed your error 500. Took a bit of digging, but then I checked your kiwitrees email configuration. You had nothing in the “Send email from” field. Mail server requirements vary. Some will accept the default “no-reply@localhost” but these days most will not. I added your email address there and now it works.

2. If I want to contact a user I tried by identifying him in Administration – Users – Manage users and clicking on his Email address. I have a problem here – a new page appears with my site header and top menu icons, and a tab with the title ‘Contact us’ – but nothing else.

Yes. As noted by Wim, that is definitely a bug. I will fix that asap. I will also transfer this part of your post to the bug list. You will find the solution there in due course 🙂

3. Registered users of the site used to contact each other by using the Widgets-Message route which of course no longer exists. How can they do it now? I’m guessing that they should do it via the Contact icon, but no drop-down list of potential addressees appears – only my name.

That’s a hard one. As mentioned before, in my research across as many kiwitrees users as possible I concluded that 99% + never had any requirement for the old messaging system. That was generally discussed as “the storage of messages internally”. But another part of that was the ability/need for users to contact each other via kiwitrees. I believe very few (possibly only you?) used that, instead of seeing all communication as being from a single user to admin and vice versa. Hence both the storage and the drop-down list of user ids were removed.

There is no possibility of putting back the storage feature, but the drop down user-to-user option may be possible. If you feel it is important I will look into it. There are a couple of ways it might be done.

However, I feel it important to mention one issue with it. As implemented there was an assumption (never explained to users) that by registering on a site a user would automatically be making their contact details available to all other members. There is a user option “Visible to other members” to set “Preferred contact method” to “No contact”, but this would normally only be set or unset by admin and it defaulted to “yes” “Kiwitrees sends emails”. Users could change it, but only if they bothered to review their account settings AFTER registration. Normal privacy rules would suggest that such a setting be either disabled by default, or if enabled it should be explained in writing during registration that this would be the case. Do you or anyone else regard this as an issue? Does anyone have a detailed privacy policy for their site (perhaps in FAQs?) that explains this?

Finally (for now) going back to your opening sentence:

I’m, having difficulty understanding how the new contact system is supposed to work, and what I have failed to set up in order for it to work correctly.

The “Contact” menu item at the top is an option only. If you disable it (Administration > Modules > Contact: Disable) then the display defaults back to the older contact link in the footer. Which you want to use is up to you.The result of clicking on either is the same.
Also, as currently configured your site has no contact link for non-members. You have set the menu item “Contact” to “Visible to members only”. That’s fine if it is your intention, but unusual. Even if the drop-down of member ids is added back to the system, that would still never be shown to non-members under any circumstances. Visitors can only ever contact admin (either or both of the Technical or Genealogical contacts set in the Family tree configuration.

ADDENDUM:
Another thought has occurred to me. In the old code where we list the user for messaging purposes, they all display real name and user id. Is this the right way to do this? Wouldn’t users expect their real names to be protected? Or do we accept that as they are all registered members it shouldn’t matter?

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

clandav wrote:

P.S. The icon for ‘Contact’ in the top menu bar appears to be the same as the ‘Home’ icon, which I imagine is not intentional, and it seems to be positioned too far left (in ‘webtrees’ theme). Bug or related to the above?

Yes that is a bug – caused by (my) lack of attention to an old theme with an old name 🙂 I’ll also add this one to the bug list.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

First of all Nigel many thanks for taking the time and trouble to check out my website and fix the 500 error.

{You have set the menu item “Contact” to “Visible to members only”. That’s fine if it is your intention, but unusual.}

Actually, I didn’t intentionally set it this way – I merely enabled the Contact module which defaulted to this setting. I agree with you it doesn’t make much sense set this way and have changed it to be ‘visible to visitors’.

As for ‘User-to-User’ communication via the website, I recognise that, if I am the only one using it I cannot really expect any special action just for me, and I know we have already been here and discussed it at some length so I won’t take more forum time on the subject. However if, as you imply may be the case, it appears to be possible without too much effort on your part, to retain within the new Contact function the drop-down list of users as it appeared in the messaging function, that would certainly meet my needs.

{In the old code where we list the user for messaging purposes, they all display real name and user id. Is this the right way to do this? Wouldn’t users expect their real names to be protected? Or do we accept that as they are all registered members it shouldn’t matter?}

In my case, with only one or two ‘special manager/administrator’ exceptions, like you Nigel, all my registered users are by definition members of the extended family tree and they, themselves, appear on the database, and this means that their details can be seen by all other registered users (with a few specific exceptions where I apply a ‘restriction’ to comply with individual privacy requests). I make this clear to them when they register, so they have accepted the position and I see no problem here.

Incidentally, when as a logged-in user viewing the Individual details of another registered user, I see alongside his full name (in red in Webtrees theme) his kiwitrees username. I believe I am right in saying that before 3.3.1, clicking on this username would generate an internal message to that user ?? Now, I see that I (as admin) am taken to the individual’s entry in Administration – Users. Should this/could this not instead now lead to the generation of an e-mail to that individual? If so, and it that could be achieved for Admin, then – perhaps, for little extra effort, it could be made available to all logged-in users??

I’d better stop there!

Ron in France Website: https://clan-davies.kiwitrees.net/ kiwitrees 3.3.11; PHP 8.0.14

Please ignore the last para above

Incidentally, when as a logged-in user viewing the Individual details of another registered user …..,

I have just tried logging in as a non-admin user and I see that the username does not appear, so it is clearly there just for admin, and logically leads to the User table.

Ron in France Website: https://clan-davies.kiwitrees.net/ kiwitrees 3.3.11; PHP 8.0.14

clandav wrote:

I have just tried logging in as a non-admin user and I see that the username does not appear, so it is clearly there just for admin, and logically leads to the User table.

That’s correct. Sorry to contradict your memory, but it has always been that way, since even PGV days.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

You had nothing in the “Send email from” field. Mail server requirements vary. Some will accept the default “no-reply@localhost” but these days most will not. I added your email address there and now it works.

I am pretty sure that this fixed what I thought was a major issue, I could not figure out a way to add a new user. I started in the back end with “approval by admin” and when I hit save I got a blank screen. So I tried the front end requesting to register and ended up a a blank screen with the menu at the top.

I have forgotten all my machinations now, I believe it included trying to use the contact button at the bottom.

But putting in a valid “from” email address has adding a user (approving the first one I tried 3 times before) working!!

Thanks All
RandyC

Hi Randy. Welcome to kiwitrees 🙂

The quickest / easiest way to add a new user does not require any email interaction. Just go to Administration > Users > Add a new user and fill in all the various fields, including the “Email verified ” and ” Approved by administrator” ones. Then contact your user by whatever means you normally contact them and tell them their login details, as that isn’t triggered by this manual process.

Alternatively (and ideally for security) get them to apply to register using the “New account” option under Login on the Home page. That way not even you know their password, which is as it should be.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info